Stuart’s Department Store’s Athol branch, located at Mohawk Plaza will close as part of the company’s strategic downsizing plans. The Athol branch of Stuart’s opened in July 1989 and employs 25 people.
■The winner of the Athol Area YMCA Pussy Willow Contest is 8-year-old Ryan Tikka, a second-grade student at Pleasant Street School.
■Joan Hamlett of the Boards of Health Tobacco Control Alliance presented Ernie and Anne Alner, owners of Ralph Longg’s Market Place, with a community award for being smoke-free. A North Central Smoke Free Dining Guide will be available shortly. It lists smoke-free restaurants and restaurants with a separate, non-smoking room in over 30 communities.
■The Athol/Royalston Regional School District Spelling Bee for top spellers in Grades 4 through 6 was held at Athol High School. Earning first place trophies were Molly McGregor, a fourth grader from Ellen Bigelow School; John Perla, a fifth grader from Riverbend School and Matt Glover, a sixth grader from Riverbend.
■A crew of Massachusetts Electric Company workers took time to assist Environmental Law Enforcement Officer Anthony Brighenti in saving a pair of baby great horned owls. The owls were nested in a large white pine tree on the south side of Fish Park. Brighenti said both parents of the owls appeared to be victims of encounters with cars. “If either of the adults had survived we would have left the birds where they were,” he said. The young owls were not old enough to feed themselves.
■Maile Shoul, a freshman at Athol High School, was selected to participate in a month-long science summer program at Smith College in Northampton. The program is designed to encourage talented young women to choose a science-related career.
■Home-schoolers from Athol, Orange and New Salem are participating in a three-week Red Cross first aid course at the YMCA under the instruction of Peter Lanteigne. The course completes a unit on the heart, in which students observed an open heart surgery at UMass Medical Center, Worcester and dissected pig hearts.
■Twelve Mahar Regional High School students were among winners at the 46th annual State Science Fair at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Heather Heyes earned first place and a $750 Dental Society award.
■Mr. Robert Raymond, chemistry instructor at the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School in Orange, was honored recently for “Meritorious Work With Students” by Westinghouse and the Science Talent Search.
Negligence on the part of Boston & Maine Railroad Company welding crews was responsible for several fires off Green Street, according to Athol Fire Chief Armand Dugas. One burned over an estimated four acres.
The Boston & Maine Railroad has reimbursed the town $174.20 in costs for the April 10 forest fire on Proctor Avenue which was caused by sparks from a passing train. The railroad was billed $62 for use of equipment and $112.20 for labor.
■James Green, a senior member of Pequoiag Chapter, National Honor Society, was named the student with the highest scholastic standing in the Class of 1970 during the annual Tap Day assembly at Athol High School. Green, son of Mr. and Mrs. O.V. Green, of Athol, has been accepted in the honors program at the University of Massachusetts.
■An estimated 350 persons attended a concert at the Uptown common sponsored by youth of the 3rd World and featuring the rock music of the Brotherhood of the Spirit, Warwick commune.
■An estimated 190 persons attended the Camp Fire Girls banquet for the sixth grade, junior high and Horizon Club girls.
■The 19th annual Girls State silver tea was held at the Congregational Church with more than 200 persons from Worcester County attending, thirty-three Girls State delegates and 16 alternates included.
■Mrs. Florence Tepper, of Orange, was presented to Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret at Lancaster House in London recently. Mrs. Tepper and her daughter, Patricia, are attending the convention of American Women in Radio and Television in England. Mrs. Tepper is hospitality chairman for the convention. Following the convention she and her daughter will spend two weeks touring Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France.
■The Orange Chamber of Commerce has asked town officials to loan trucks and men for a county-wide “paint up, fix up” day in Orange. Selectmen have promised the loan of three trucks and drivers if the chamber finds three men to assist on each truck.
■Peter Bachelder, 11, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Bachelder, of Athol, won $10 and a 1969 World Yearbook for his question on gasoline submitted to the Associated Press Junior Editors quiz. He is a member of Boy Scout Troop 18.
Judge C. Edward Rowe of Athol has been nominated a director of the Smaller War Plants Corp. by President Truman, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Washington. The corporation was organized to help small plants during the war and reconversion periods. Judge Rowe graduated from Suffolk Law School in 1926. In 1933 he was appointed special justice, District Court of Eastern Franklin, and justice in 1936. At present, he is engaged in general law practice, and is director of the First National Bank of Athol, Athol Co-operative Bank, Harrington Richardson Arms Co., Worcester, and Union Tool Co., Orange.
■It was announced by Arthur H. Starrett, president of the Athol YMCA, that the Y had accepted a gift of 80 acres of land located near the Bearsden Cut, from John Swan, Athol businessman. Swan stated that he wanted to give the land “for the good of the boys and girls of Athol,” to provide an area of wooded land that the youngsters might feel their own and could roam at will over the rocks on their trips of explorations on Saturdays.
■The lonely soldier somewhere in the European theater had waited for five months for a letter from home and from his brother who was also serving in that theater. When his mail finally caught up with him sometime in March, he learned for the first time of the death of his younger brother and of the birth of his daughter. On that day in March, S/Sgt. Thomas McKay of Athol received 203 letters and his Christmas packages. Included in a letter from his wife were pictures of his baby, Sharon, taken when she was two months old. It took five months of waiting to learn of the birth and death.
■Pfc. Norman Cummings, son of Samuel Cummings of Athol, who was reported missing in action in Germany on April 8, has now reported back to active duty, according to a letter received by his wife, Faith.
■Pvt. Richard D. Gerhard, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.L. Gerhard, of Athol, was slightly wounded in action in Germany on April 17, according to a War Department telegram.
■Second Lt. Roger A. Spaulding, son of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Spaulding, of Athol, was reported as missing in action in Europe since April 10.
■Pfc. Kenneth P. Pelletier, son of Mrs. Philip Pelletier, of Orange, has been awarded the Bronze Star.